Becker College students win MassDiGI challenge

Marie SzaniszloMonday, April 16, 2012

Five Becker College students won the first MassDiGI Game Challenge last weekend, beating out dozens of other teams in a race to create the best video game.

The grand prize went to Jonathan Niemi, Chris Gengler, Andrew Niemi, Emil Ritter and Ali Swei for their game, “Nanoswarm,” about a swarm of tiny robots, or “nanobots,” that become “self-aware” and try to break out of a research facility, dodging flame throwers and machine-gun fire along the way.

“We were shocked,” Swei, 21, of Brookline, said of his team’s win at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge, where 300 aspiring video game developers gathered for the competition. “Everyone there had good ideas. We felt humbled by it.”

Monty Sharma, the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute’s managing director, said the judges were impressed with the “imagery of the swarm and the fact that the whole game could be played with touch, so that simple gestures turn into a complex game.”

As the grand-prize winners, the team’s game will be developed for 12 weeks by students in MassDiGI’s summer innovation program so that it will be launchable by the end of the season.